


What's Left Behind

by DownToTheSea



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: A Little Shadow-Related Horror, Adventure, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27151210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToTheSea/pseuds/DownToTheSea
Summary: Lyta and G'Kar discover a former Shadow outpost.
Relationships: Lyta Alexander/G'Kar
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7
Collections: Fic In A Box





	What's Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janetcarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/gifts).



“So, where we stopping today?” Lyta asked, leaning against the wall and watching G’Kar at the pilot’s seat. She could feel the vast howling tunnels of hyperspace outside; ever since she had begun experimenting more and more with her powers, its lure grew stronger. She had wondered how powerful she would be with that boost on top of everything else. But so far she hadn’t tried anything. She wasn’t quite sure if she or the universe could withstand it.

G’Kar spun his chair around to face her with an elaborate flourish. “I have been assured that today’s port of call is a bustling, glittering jewel amongst the stars, and we shall be welcomed with the friendliest of arms.”

Lyta raised a doubtful eyebrow. “All the way out here?”

“The map I bought  _ did  _ seem rather out of date,” G’Kar admitted. “But what is life if we cannot live in hope of finding something strange and beautiful where we least expect it?”

“...You got scammed, didn’t you? You’re just trying to distract me with all that…” She waved a hand. “Poetry.”

“Ah, so you believe I’m poetic?” G’Kar’s eye glittered.

“I think you’re gullible,” Lyta said, trying not to think about how that felt like deflecting. “I think we’ll be lucky if there’s so much as an outpost anywhere in this – ”

As she spoke, the jumpgate point activated, dropping them out of hyperspace near a small planet. It was far away from this galaxy’s sun, and most of it was currently covered with pale green clouds.

Lyta stopped talking.

Or maybe she didn’t, but the screaming in her head was so loud that it drowned everything out. If she hadn’t been leaning against the wall, she’d have fallen over from the sheer force of it.

Her face must have gone blank: next thing she knew G’Kar was out of his chair, one hand reaching out as if to prop her up.

“Are you all right?” he was saying.

She shook her head, fuzzy and distant; she’d slammed as many blocks into place as she could to keep whatever was on that planet out of her head, but even so she could still hear it faintly.

“What’s the matter?” G’kar asked, gently, quietly, obviously trying not to make whatever it was worse, even though he couldn’t have had any idea what was happening to her. Lyta wasn’t used to people taking that extra step of consideration for her. She blinked at him, disoriented.

“Something on the planet?” He cast an appraising look at the scanner information that was scrolling through the pilot’s displays.

Lyta shook her head again. “That’s not a planet,” she said. Her throat was raw, like she had been the one screaming. “It’s a graveyard.”

The beams from their flashlights barely did anything to cut through the fog hanging thick in the air, not even the high-powered one G’Kar kept on hand for ship emergencies. Lyta eyed the fog suspiciously. The planet's atmosphere wasn't welcoming on a good day, but she couldn't help but think that anything remaining in the underground halls they walked through was directly intended to kill anyone who dared venture in. G’Kar wore an oxygen breather with a filter, but Lyta had no need of such things: the gills the Vorlons had installed filtered out poisons and toxic compounds, turning it all into clean breathable air for her. They were especially likely to be effective against anything found in a Shadow facility.

That was what this planet had contained once, and most likely what had killed everything else that might have ever lived here. Only two kinds of being in the universe left such suffering behind them, and Lyta had long ago learned to recognize the differences in their fingerprints.

“What was this place?” G’Kar asked in low tones, looking around.

Lyta's jaw clenched. “Thousands of years ago, the Vorlons created telepaths, to fight the Shadows.” He knew that already, so she tried to skip over the gruesome details, the parts she didn't want to think about too hard. “The Shadows created… other things. This is one of the places they created them. I'm just surprised that it's still standing after all these years.”

Then again, was it so surprising? Before a few years ago, anyone who set foot into a Shadow stronghold never came out, at least not the way they'd been when they entered. And no telepath, not even her, could trigger the self-destruct from space with that much psychic interference. She'd felt it the  _ instant _ they dropped out of hyperspace. Sure, she was strong, but even so, how much pain had been here for her to feel it from orbit: sunk into the walls and the very atmosphere of the planet? She shivered. It was ironic, Lyta thought sourly, that the Shadows causing so much pain only helped to shield them in the end.

Well, it didn't matter now. They were gone, and if Lyta had her way this facility would join them within the next couple hours. She wouldn't have dragged G’Kar along to help her, but he had insisted on coming. She'd pretended to be annoyed at his intrusion, but his determination not to let her go alone into whatever vault of horrors awaited her was kind of touching, actually.

Not that this was much of a vault of horrors yet, at least. Just that creepy fog, and the emotions she'd felt from space, intensifying the deeper they got. It was getting harder to block them out. They had been here so long, they were hardly even recognizable voices anymore; just a sustained one-note shriek in a thousand different tones.

She was concentrating so hard on trying to keep them out of her head – she didn't need anything else painful knocking around in there, thanks very much – that she didn't notice the slight depression her boot made in the floor until a click sounded from beneath her. In front of them, barely visible, a tiny point of violet light activated. The same color as the Shadow ships’ weapons.

“Oh, sh–”

Before she could move, a large and determined force collided with her, shoving her off her feet and into the wall just as the laser fired. It was there and gone in an instant, leaving a brilliant afterimage burning against the dimness.

Scales were pressing into her cheek. She didn't like how slack he'd gone. “G’Kar?”

He groaned, then rolled off her. Lyta pushed herself up on an elbow, fumbling around for one of the flashlights they’d dropped. She shone it over him, and her eyes widened. He was clutching at his upper arm. It smoked slightly, and Lyta realized in horror that the laser had gone straight through the side of his arm.

He struggled to his knees, inspecting the wound. “Hmm,” he said.

Worry found an outlet in anger at his casual tone. “You almost died!”

“And yet I did not, a fact which I can only put down to my own impressive speed and agility.”

Lyta gaped.

“I have almost died many times, Lyta,” he said, more softly. “After a while one becomes unfortunately accustomed to it.”

“I know, but… I mean…”  _ For me,  _ she wanted to say.  _ You almost died  _ for me.  _ That’s pretty new. _

But all that came out was: “Why?”

He met her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?”

A simple question, three words, but it floored her. Why wouldn’t he throw himself into danger for her? Why  _ would  _ he?

Then she realized the obvious explanation: that was just G’Kar’s worldview. He probably would have sacrificed himself for anyone. She was nothing special.

The universe aligned again, making sense in a way it hadn’t when she had looked at him and seen…

“Come on,” she said, roughly shoving the thought down, letting it dissipate under the half-blocked mental scream from all the people who had suffered here long ago. She got up, taking his arm and helping to haul him to his feet.

“Let’s blow this place to hell.”

“You have an admirable way with words.”


End file.
